Challenging times demand creative and innovative responses. A contemplative, balanced approach can be of great benefit not only in dealing with the stresses of individual life but in finding creative solutions to the many crisis currently besetting human society and the earth.

All spiritual traditions have carefully crafted practices for creating a balanced life. However, we feel the time has come for a more inclusive, secular approach so greater numbers of people can learn to cultivate a practice of stillness, reflection and clarity and be of greater service to others and the planet. This is the purpose of the Meditation Leaders Training Program.

The Meditation Leaders Training Program is a comprehensive multi-level program designed to teach experienced practitioners to teach meditation to others. It also features a modular approach for people who are not yet ready to train others but wish to deepen their own practice experience.

This certification program is also appropriate for people with contemplative practice experience working in the fields of psychology, yoga teaching, health and well-being and spiritual guides or ministers from any tradition who would like to share basic meditation practice techniques with their students, clients, and mentees.

The program is designed similarly to established 200 hour yoga teacher training programs. This is a three-tier program in which students can take modules of 40 or 80 hours building toward the 200 hour training.

This 200 Hour Meditation Leaders Training begins the summer of 2013 with 6 weekend workshops (totaling 100hrs) and 5 weeks (4 days a week in evenings). Fall and Spring sessions will be announced. The program can be taken all at once, or taken in whatever blocks the student can manage over a year or more. Payment programs and scholarship opportunities are available.

200 Hour Meditation Leadership Training

$190.00 each individually✦ June 22 & 23 Mindfulness, Basic Meditation & Movement✦ June 29 & 30 Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction✦ July 6 & 7 Zen - at Zendo✦ July 13 & 14 Being Present to Loss & Basic Counseling Skills✦ July 27 & 28

Vipassana✦ August 3 & 4 Teaching Practice

6 Weekends Workshops

Week 1. Mindfulness and Basic MeditationWeek 2. Mindfulness Based Stress ReductionWeek 3. VipassanaWeek 4. Being Present to Loss & Basic Counseling SkillsWeek 5. Advanced Awareness Techniques(For 200 hour program)

5 Weeks of Weekday Evening Sessions

3 Levels:40 hr - Committed Practitioner! !80 hr - Junior Leadership ! !200 hr - Meditation Leaders Training

To Register: http://www.sagetaos.com/registrations/For more information: alana_grier@yahoo.com or 505-818-9898

80 hr - Junior Leadership $895.00Includes everything in 40 hour program plus:• Basic counseling • Techniques for dealing with loss• Vipassana meditation• Zen meditation techniques• Basic meditation instruction guidance, breathing and posture• More on mindful body practice techniques• Creativity in our practice techniques

40 hr - Committed Practitioner Program Includes both residential and low residential options. Areas covered include:• Basic meditation and mindfulness instruction techniques• Sitting meditation practice• Breathing practice• Intro to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction• Simple usable mindful body techniques: basic Hatha Yoga

asana, Chi Kung, walking meditation• Guided meditation techniques• Compassion practices - Loving Kindness/Metta meditation• Journaling

200 hr - Meditation Leader Training Includes everything in 80 hour program plus:• How to design and facilitate a meditation class or training program• Identify and demonstrate a variety of meditation teaching techniques• Facilitating basic body awareness• Emotional awareness and coping techniques• Ethics, character building and development of virtue• Advanced awareness techniques for instructor• Verbal Cueing and physical guidance of teaching• Supervised teaching experience

$1,995.00

About Sage InstituteSage Institute is dedicated to education in the areas of creative expression, the environment, and human consciousness, with special emphasis on the intersection between the arts and contemplative practice. Our areas of concern range from visual and performance arts and literature to contemplative, meditative, and mindfulness practices, and environment/ecologicalpreservation.

We believe that a creative and contemplative approach provides our best hope for finding solutions to the many crises currently besetting human society and the earth. We are committed to a multicultural orientation, incorporating indigenous and time-honored wisdom traditions.

www.sagetaos.com

$450.00

Our TeachersSean Murphy has had over 25 years of formal Zen training, first under the direction of Taizan Maezumi Roshi of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and then with John Daido Loori Roshi of Zen Monastery in upstate New York. He now studies with Gerry Shishin Wick Roshi of the Great Mountain Zen Center in Colorado. He teaches meditation, creative writing and literature for UNM-Taos and has taught and presented on Zen practice and meditation for 15 years. He is the founder of the Sage Institute for Environment, Creativity, and Consciousness. www.murphyzen.com

Mirabai Starr M.A., is the SAGE Institute Vice-President and Co-founder. Critically acclaimed author and translator of the Spanish mystics (Dark Night of the Soul: St John of the Cross; Teresa of Avila: The Book Of My Life). She teaches Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos and teaches and speaks widely on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. Mirabai teaches internationally on grief & transformation. As a certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss.

www.mirabaistarr.com

Alana Grier began her studies in Yoga, Eastern Medicine and meditation 25 years ago and has enjoyed a well rounded career in wellness for over 20 years. Teaching Yoga, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and wellness coaching are Alana’s passions and way of life. She is Managing Director of Sage and teaches for UNM Taos’ Yoga Instructor Training Program. She runs her own wellness business, 365 Days of Wellness. 365daysofwellness.net

Dr. Kate O’Neill has been the UNM Executive Director since 2006. A tenured Associate Professor of Psychology, her academic interests focus on socio-cultural psychology, mindfulness, and creativity, with a special emphasis on community college education. Kate is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leadership Program, and studied Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction with John Kabat Zinn.

Marcia Rose (Vipassana) lives in Taos, NM. She is the founding and guiding teacher of The Mountain Hermitage and founding teacher of Taos Mountain Sangha. She has been studying and practicing Buddhist teachings and meditation with Asian and Western teachers since 1970, primarily in the Theravada-Vipassana (Path of the Elders) tradition. Marcia was resident teacher for staff at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA from 1991-1995. She trained extensively with IMS founders Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, and continues to serve as visiting teacher at IMS and The Forest Refuge in Barre, MA.

Jule Tato (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) has practiced Vipassana meditation since 1988, primarily with Sharon Salzberg, other IMS teachers, and Ven. Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Julie has lived, worked, and practiced in spiritual communities, including six+ years at IMS where she supported the integration of Dhamma with service. She has been an instructor for the Insight Meditation Correspondence Course and has a particular interest in the Brahma Viharas and in the practice of Dhamma in daily life. She works and lives in Northern New Mexico supporting people with disabilities and their families.

Our Honorary/Advisory Board Includes:Ram Dass One of the most prominent of American contemporary spiritual teachers, the author of the seminal Be Here Now and many other books, he was a major figure in the consciousness movements that began in the 1960’s, making the ancient contemplative practices of the east available and accessible to Western practitioners.

Gerry Shishin Wick, Roshi, Spiritual Leader of Great Mountain Zen Center in Lafayette, Colorado, is a Dharma Successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi in both the Soto and Rinzai lineages of Zen. He currently serves as President of the White Plum Asangha, the largest organization of Zen teachers in the West.

Sharon Salzberg, one of America’s leading spiritual teachers and authors, is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. The ancient Buddhist practices of Vipassana (mindfulness) and Metta (lovingkindness) are the foundations of her work.

Natalie Goldberg is the author of Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within (1986), which broke open the world of creativity and started a revolution in the way we practice writing in this country. The book has sold over one million copies and been translated into fourteen languages. A long-time Zen practitioner, she has since written many other books, including many writings on her Zen practice experiences. She teaches extensively all over the world, presenting writing practice as a genuine meditative path.

Andrew Harvey is an internationally renowned author, teacher, Rumi translator, and mystic scholar, and founder of the Institute for Social Activism. Author of over 30 books including The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.

William Hart McNichols, a Catholic priest and icon painter, lives in Taos, New Mexico. He is described by Time Magazine as being among the most prominent creators of Christian iconic images in the world.

Kijun Tenryu Steven Allen, a Dharma successor to Issan Dorsey, is the founding Abbot of Dragon Mountain Temple in Crestone, Colorado and a holder of the American Soto Zen lineage linked to the San Francisco Zen Center. His primary teachers have been Shunryu Suzuki, Dainin Katagiri, Richard Baker, Philip Whalen, and Issan Dorsey. Currently his teaching focus is an effort to help bridge the gap between Eastern and Western spiritual thought and practice by using texts both from the traditional Zen Koan system and the Western literary tradition.

John Treadwell Nichols, novelist, essayist, and activist, moved to Taos in 1969; the author of acclaimed novels and books of essays including The Sterile Cuckoo and The Milagro Beanfield War, which became a movie directed by Robert Redford.

Jo Ann Barefoot, Sage Institute’s Financial Advisor, served as co-chair of the Trustees Council of International Nature Conservancy and is an internationally-known banking and finance expert. She has served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and has advised most of America’s largest financial institutions, scores of community banks, and numerous non-profits and government agencies. An author of several books and over 150 articles she has testified repeatedly before Congress and federal officials; and has built several organizations focused on consumer financial issues.